Stuff to pimp your Windows Home Server

Hacking Windows Home Server is a blog dedicated to Microsoft's WHS technology. Brought to you by Donavon West, Microsoft MVP and author of LiveGadgets.net and donavon.com I'll also discuss the Hewlett-Packard HP MediaSmart Server EX470, EX475, EX485, EX487, the T7-HSA Tranquil Harmony Home Server and any other new Home Server hardware platforms that arise. You can also call this hacking or hackz. In any case I will show you some cool things to make your Microsoft Windows Home Server even sweeter.

A blog devoted to getting the most out of your
Windows Home Server by Microsoft MVP Donavon West.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

About Home Server Hacks

Home Server Hacks is a labor of love by Microsoft MVP Donavon West. Donavon is a freelance developer living in the Baltimore/Washington DC area. Although his main area of expertise is gadget development, he fell in love with his HP MediaSmart Server and started hacking it. The work "hacking" or "hacker" has gotten a bad rap, but there is how hacker is defined on Wikipedia:

"In home computing, a hacker is a computer hobbyist putting software or hardware of their system to the extreme."

Contact Donavon

To contact Donavon about Home Server Hacks, send an email to email@domain.com (where domain = homeserverhacks). Sorry that I have to be so cryptic, but this is to fool the evil spam-bots.

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What's up with NewEgg?

I just love NewEgg! As my fiance will confirm, much of my "play money" goes to them. First of all, they have great prices. Most items ship the same day and usually arrive the next day (even when I order with 3 day shipping)! That is why I feel good about being a NewEgg affiliate. Anything you purchase from NewEgg, via links on this blog, helps to maintain the site and allows me to experiment on new and exciting articles.

A plug for Donavon's "day job"

Donavon is a developer of gadgets, those little thingies that sit on your Windows Vista Sidebar. His company LiveGadgets.net is one of the leading gadget developers. You can see some of his work by viewing the Gadget Gallery, but here are some of his most notable works:

Traffic by Live Search Maps
The traffic gadget has has become one of the most popular Microsoft branded gadgets.
Office Tips & Tricks
Microsoft Office system Tips & Tricks offers helpful hints designed to simplify everyday tasks. Get a different tip delivered to your desktop each day.
Say It!
Say It! is the wildly popular gadget that allows you to perform text-to-speech right from your Vista Sidebar.

Profiles

Click on an image below to view Donavon's various profiles:

image  

Fin. Why not comment on what you've just read or even Digg It!

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Donavan - Thanks for a resourceful and intuitive web site about the Home Server. I've done the CPU and RAM upgrade and couldn't be happier for having your instructions and photos to refer to. Wow - what a difference in perfromance and speed!

One question: Why haven't you added the Windows Media Player 11 Hack to your site yet? It seems this is probably the most popular software hack amongst Home Server enthusists and gives a broader range of Media Devices on the home network access to sharing media from the Home Server than does the Mdeia Connect crap that the Home Server comes bundeled with. (such as the 802.11 Momento Photo frame). As well as supporting a wider range of codecs and streaming media.

The community at large has utilized the following post to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11 and it's Network Sharing Services on the Home Server:

http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver/showpost.aspx?siteid=50&postid=2710107

However, you'll notice that while this hack has been working great for months, it apears that a patch from Microsoft that was distributed in the April 10 timeframe "broke" Windows Media Network Sharing Services from working properly on the Home Server. We'd love to have your help in troubleshooting and resolving that one if you're up for it.

Kind Regards - and thanks again!

Ron

Anne Barela said...

My daughter loves Say It 2 but on my PC, the guy just says "Blah" when a word is typed :(

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